Modelling the Proliferation of Terrorism via Diffusion and Contagion

Abstract

The proliferation of terrorism is a serious concern in national and international security, as its spread is seen as an existential threat to Western liberal democracies. Understanding and effectively modelling the spread of terrorism provides useful insight into formulating effective responses. A mathematical model capturing the theoretical constructs of contagion and diffusion is constructed for explaining the spread of terrorist activity and used to analyse data from the Global Terrorism Database from 2000--2016 for Afghanistan, Iraq, and Israel.